Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Area summation and masking.

Tim S Meese1

  • 1Neurosciences Research Institute, School of Life and Health Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham, UK. t.s.meese@aston.ac.uk

Journal of Vision
|December 15, 2004
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Summation of contrast across the visual field: A common "fourth root" rule holds from the fovea to the periphery.

Vision research·2026
Same author

Introducing Philosophy Corner.

Perception·2025
Same author

Phenomenology and philosophy for perceptionists: A renewed role in the face of AI.

Perception·2025
Same author

An eye to AI, part II: Consciousness without qualia.

Perception·2025
Same author

An eye to AI, part I: Understanding without consciousness.

Perception·2025
Same author

Dazzle camouflage: benefits and problems revealed.

Royal Society open science·2024
Same journal

Analysis of human visual experience data.

Journal of vision·2026
Same journal

Pyramid-based Bayesian modeling for high-resolution behavioral analysis.

Journal of vision·2026
Same journal

Sensation without perception: The white whale effect and perceptual blindness in autonomous vehicles.

Journal of vision·2026
Same journal

Gaze behavior during closed-captioned movie viewing adapts to absent audio through more frequent switching between text and scene.

Journal of vision·2026
Same journal

In pursuit of saccade awareness: Limited volitional control and minimal conscious access to catch-up saccades during smooth pursuit eye movements.

Journal of vision·2026
Same journal

Dissociable effects of element-lifetime and stimulus-duration on local and global motion processing: An equivalent noise study.

Journal of vision·2026
See all related articles

Area summation, the improvement in visual sensitivity with larger test areas, is abolished for within-channel masking but not for cross-channel masking. This suggests observers can control spatial integration but not suppression.

Area of Science:

  • Visual perception
  • Psychophysics
  • Computational neuroscience

Background:

  • Sensitivity improves with larger test areas at detection threshold.
  • This area summation effect is abolished during contrast discrimination tasks.
  • The specificity of this abolition (within-channel vs. cross-channel masking) is unknown.

Purpose of the Study:

  • Investigate if area summation abolition is specific to within-channel masking.
  • Determine if area summation abolition also occurs in cross-channel masking.
  • Test an extended contrast masking model.

Main Methods:

  • Measured threshold-versus-contrast masking functions.
  • Used small (SS), large (LL), and small-large (SL) test and mask stimuli.
  • Compared within-channel and cross-channel masking conditions.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • Within-channel masking: Area summation abolished at intermediate/high contrasts, replicating prior findings.
  • Cross-channel masking: Area summation occurred across all conditions; SS and SL results were identical.
  • Less facilitation observed for SL than SS in within-channel masking.

Conclusions:

  • Area summation is not abolished for cross-channel masking.
  • Within-channel area summation can be empirically abolished without model disablement.
  • Observers can select spatial integration area, but not suppression.
  • Extending cross-channel masks to the surround does not affect contrast detection.
  • Formal similarity exists between area summation and contrast adaptation.